Episode 6: Establishing an Integrative Medicine Practice with Dr. Brian Paris
This week we have in the studio, Dr. Brian Paris, the owner of Pain Arthritis Relief Center. His focus has been to build an integrative healthcare delivery facility and company that creates a wow experience, gets really good results, and creates a better pathway for our fellow brothers and sisters to feel better and then get well.
Guest Bios
Dr. Brian Paris
The Wellness Expert
Dr. Brian Paris knows the price of pain. It affects not only our physical health, but our emotional wellbeing and confidence as well. That’s why Dr. Paris has spent his entire career as a wellness expert, understanding how the interdependent parts of the body work as a whole, and helping his patients find solutions to chronic knee pain, backaches, headaches, arthritis and more—all without surgery or drugs.
Links and Other Goodies:
- Pain Arthritis Relief Center
https://painarthritisrelief.com/
Transcript:
Speaker 1 (00:04):
Integrative medicine has been around for thousands of years and is now a widely used form of healthcare across the modern world. In this podcast, we discuss holistic wellness and share how integrative medicine has evolved to become a part of our culture today. This is All Things Integrative brought to you by Virginia University of Integrative Medicine.
Speaker: Chad Egresi (00:32):
Thanks for joining us today at Virginia University of Integrative Medicine. I’d like to introduce everybody to Dr. Brian Paris, who is the wellness expert and owner of Pain, Arthritis Relief Center. Brian, can you please tell us a little bit about yourself?
Speaker: Dr. Brian Paris (00:47):
Sure. Where do I start? Well, yeah. First, thank you for having me. I’m honored to be able to speak to the public about the benefits of acupuncture and how I’ve been successful in integrating it into my practice and also the philosophy of our overall treatment. By trade I’m a chiropractor, Doctor of Chiropractic, for the last 18 years. Now my focus has really been to build an integrative healthcare delivery facility and company that does things that nobody else does. Create a WOW experience, get really good results, and just really, create a better pathway for our fellow brothers and sisters and, and humans to figure out better ways to get them their health in line. Feel better and then get well.
Speaker: Chad Egresi (01:40):
Awesome! It sounds like a great endeavor. I think we’re on the same page with what we’re trying to do here at VUIM. So, perfect guest for the day. Can you talk to us a little bit about why you’ve dedicated your career to becoming known as the Wellness Expert?
Speaker: Dr. Brian Paris (01:55):
Yeah. I think maybe several, hundreds of years ago there, you know, you could go back to the theory of “one cause, one cure”, right? And I think that theory had been rifled to pieces and shredded and thrown in the garbage because there’s so many toxic elements in life from psychological toxicity to spiritual toxicity to physical toxicity to nutritional toxicity to, you name it, electromagnetic toxicity and pollution. And so all of these elements play a role in how your body and spirit and emotions are going to heal. So I, I found that just one angle of care was not going to cut it and I wasn’t able to serve my community as well as we can now. So I started as a chiropractor only in specifically did more of, if I could relate it to the audience and to you, in the world of like orthodontics, like spina orthadonticsl, we did more postural based work and it was limited. It was limited because I had a lot of people that would come in that are athletes that had ankle problems, knee problems, shoulder problems. So we just kept expanding that model and finding a need for other types of care to help again help patients and people feel better and then get well.
Speaker: Chad Egresi (03:22):
Wonderful. Awesome. So when it comes to becoming the wellness expert, when you think about being a wellness expert, you were talking a little bit about bringing different modalities into your primary function area, which is chiropractic work. Right? What do you think we need to do as a society to help create an environment for wellness?
Speaker: Dr. Brian Paris (03:46):
Great question. Just to clarify please. My clinic “Pain Arthritis Relief Center”, it’s not a, and I’ll lead this into wellness. So it’s not like an a la cart system, right? You don’t come in and say, Hmm, I’m going to choose chiropractic, I’m going to do acupuncture here. I’m going to do this injection over here. So it’s a system based on a team that we’ve integrated. So taking that word integration, we’ve integrated our practitioners. So you know, a lot of times there’s a societal thing with chiropractors and PTs are medical doctors and chiropractors, they don’t get along, but you put us in the same room and you can’t really tell the difference. So we’ve worked more on, and this is where wellness comes in, it’s like, it’s understanding one, how to feel safe as a human.
Speaker: Dr. Brian Paris (04:33):
Because even though you’re a practitioner and you’re an animal and you can adjust this many people a day, or you can do this many injections a day, you have to feel safe as a practitioner and be able to relate to your coworkers. So, so I look at wellness as an all encompassed balance, nutrition, emotion, spirituality, physically. So all of those things. So why did I become a wellness expert so to speak? I didn’t have another, I didn’t have a better word cause that’s the most popular word out there. But you know, I’m my own experiment, right? So I pay attention to nutrition. I’ve seen how that affects myself with, with me personally with my children and, and patients as well. I’ve looked at limitations that chiropractic may have and said, okay, what other elements do we need to bring in here?
Speaker: Dr. Brian Paris (05:22):
Cause a lot of practitioners, our model that we practice by as we call it, feel better, get well, right? So in a lot of these musculoskeletal professions and medicine in general, there’s not that attention to making sure that people are feeling safe first and addressing what’s going to help you feel better. This is the coolest piece about acupuncture. You may have to wrangle me soon. I may be off target. But like with acupuncture itself, if my back hurts, I’m not necessarily gonna needle that area. There’s, there’s maps right way North, South, left, right, sure. Of where the pain may be. So taking this, these models into consideration, we’ve, we’ve put these systems together so that you’re, you’re looking at pain as an element and then also that overall wellness. So I’m losing track here.
Speaker: Chad Egresi (06:12):
No, I think you’re right on it. I think you’re doing a great job. So is it fair to say that from a, from a wellness perspective that we’re both, whether it’s at pain and arthritis center or it’s here at VUIM, we’re both trying to address a whole person scenario rather than just treat a symptom. We’re trying to look at the individual and say, how do we make, how do we make you, well, how do we help you lead the best life possible? Is that a fair?
Speaker: Dr. Brian Paris (06:38):
Definitely. An older orthopedic friend of mine, God rest his soul. He’s passed used to say your x-rays or your MRIs, they don’t bleed. Right? So it’s like, you know, you’re looking at someone, Oh, I could, I can take, I can look at someone’s MRIs on, on you know, telematically right. But that’s not going to give me an answer to that human, right? And how and how perhaps the story of that person’s low back pain started when they were abused by their parents. Absolutely. Right. And how is that going to play a role in that person’s healing? And it’s not just a musculoskeletal thing. That’s what I love about acupuncture because even though people are feeling that it’s like this, you know, you’re getting a needle in you, so to speak. And, traditionally people are looking at it for relief of musculoskeletal pain, but there’s a balancing of the energy within the system that people figured this out thousands of years before contemporary medicine, before chiropractic work.
Speaker: Dr. Brian Paris (07:35):
So these maps and the understanding of the human system conceptually some people don’t, can’t get it. I don’t clearly get it. But we’ve actually come up with our own techniques that are based on acupuncture maps and one one is painless dry needling and another one is called the color mapping. Another one’s called reflexive pattern therapy. So my business partner, Andrew block, is an acupuncturist and a physical therapist created these techniques. And we’ve taught personal trainers, we’ve taught strength conditioning coaches, we’ve taught chiropractic, we’ve taught medical doctors, we’ve every profession that’s out there that wants to put their hands on people. It’s not necessarily wherever the pain is, mash it, stretch it, pull it product. I said heat it, stick it. It’s, it’s understanding that that whole aspect, wonderful psychology, emotions, nutrition, physical, you name it.
Speaker: Chad Egresi (08:25):
Right. So one of the things that I’ve experienced personally is, you know, when you go to a doctor’s office, it feels like you’re just being pushed from person to person. You come into the billing, you’d go to the doctor, the doctor’s there for a couple minutes and they leave. So you don’t really get a chance to really engage. So can you give us an idea of what it’s like as a patient to come into your clinic and potentially be treated by three different modalities from an integrative perspective?
Speaker: Dr. Brian Paris (08:49):
Yeah. Great. And, and really it all starts with, in our organization, it starts with a phone call. And typically someone is not walking in there making a phone call. You know, there’s an advertisement that gets your attraction, like, you know or that attracts you to say, Hey, I want to try these guys out. And it starts with rapport and connection. So that’s one of our core values is to make sure that you are listened to on the phone. Most people that you and it’s pretty funny, I’ve answered a lot of phone calls and people will call up and say, do you take blue cross blue shield? That’s the first question. And my response is, that’s a great question. What’s your name? Who are you? What’s going on? People like get knocked back on their heels when you actually ask them who they are beyond what their pain is, beyond what their insurance is.
Speaker: Dr. Brian Paris (09:39):
Some people don’t have the patience to do it. And I’m, I’m notoriously an impatient guy who’s learned to become and practice patience so that I can become a much better listener and slow down, become more grounded so that I can make connections. So that’s the most important part, connection. And we want to make sure that you have as little paperwork as possible. Unfortunately, if you want to use insurance and regulations, you gotta have that. So insurance, we could talk for hours about the, the pains of insurance. I’ve been in the industry for 18 years. And you know, it’s not really an enjoyable aspect of practice. However, what I’ve had to do, because I’m in that game, I want people to use their insurance and if it’s covered or don’t want to use it. So we’ve had to get very effective at explaining and understanding someone’s insurance so that that doesn’t get in the way of the care they need to receive.
Speaker: Dr. Brian Paris (10:28):
Gotcha. So for us, again, coming into the office, you have a, we want to have a warm welcome, a wow experience. We want to get you to feel better on the first visit. So after doing a thorough exam and, and a communication about your history, we’re actually gonna do some treatment to help you feel better. And then we focus on what other tests we need to do, whether they’re X rays or looking at your MRI’s or all of our physical exams to figure out what the long term process will be to help you get well. And when I talk about getting well that’s things like flexibility, stability, mobility, posture, strength. Those are traditional things. The nontraditional things are what we use. We have some special tools like our reflex of pattern therapy or some of the color mapping or painless dry needling that we use.
Speaker: Dr. Brian Paris (11:10):
Those things are going to help people feel better as fast as possible so they feel safe. Wonderful. And or so you feel safe. One more than that. And that’s been a, it’s been a very effective system cause I used to think the other way. Okay. I kind of ignored what someone was feeling and I said, we just need to fix your posture and that’s it. Your posture is crooked. We’ve got to fix it. I don’t really care how you feel. Right? So it took me a lot of humility and getting kicked in my own shins to understand how to, how to treat people.
Speaker: Chad Egresi (11:39):
Yeah. Like you said, it starts with a relationship right before anything, if you don’t have a relationship with a person, it’s really difficult for them to trust you, especially if they’re coming into an environment that they don’t know. You know, they’ve gone to a medical doctor and a medical doctor fortunately says, well, maybe you should see an acupuncturist or a chiropractor and then they show up at your place. So they’re not necessarily in a trusting environment or a fully trusting environment yet. But I think it’s important. So what you’re touching on in terms of relationship building seems very, very critical here.
Speaker: Dr. Brian Paris (12:07):
Well, and, and what we just talked about was a really cool word that I just learned from your colleague in our conversation, consumerism. And that’s like becoming a, for the audience and all of us in here, this is a new term where, and I never heard of it until 15 minutes ago, that I’m like just coming in and it’s true. People are much more educated about all of these things and the internet has opened the doors to things that are viable and things that are, you know, you never really know cause you can see the negative aspect and you can see the positive aspect of things.
Speaker: Chad Egresi (12:38):
Definitely. And even with that, sometimes you still have to correct, right? You, somebody goes on to Google, they search for chiropractic work. The first thing they see is an advertisement. They read it. They don’t realize what chiropractic work actually is until they talk to you as a doctor. Right. So there’s even more work to do. Yes. So, one of the things that we know about your pain arthritis relief center is you have an advanced wellness systems program. Can you talk to us about what that is?
Speaker: Dr. Brian Paris (13:06):
Well I would say it’s, it’s there’s, there’s several elements and I think it’s really the bottom line is understanding the person’s needs and balancing that with their desires, so to speak. Right? Like some people say, I just want to get out of pain and other people say I want to get in pain and I want to make sure it doesn’t come back. What do I need to do in order to achieve that? And I, and I think when we talk about advanced wellness systems, like when you put these systems together, it’s really an integrated approach and saying, okay, I’m not going to just choose this because I like this person. Our team’s going to come together, assess your needs, your desires, your physical and clinical capable like or what’s going on with you so we can come up with an appropriate plan.
Speaker: Chad Egresi (13:49):
How do you, how do you, like what’s the physical process of referring somebody with your clinic when somebody comes in and they see you initially you’re a trained chiropractor, is that accurate?
Speaker: Chad Egresi
I don’t practice anymore.
Okay. So you’re not practicing? No. Let’s say you’re still practicing or they’re coming to see one of your people. They see a chiropractor, the chiropractor does a chiropractor know then to say after they’ve done their work? Well, you know, based on what we’ve done here, it seems like maybe an acupuncture treatment would help you. And we have acupuncturists on staff. So I’d recommend is that, do they refer that way or
Speaker: Dr. Brian Paris (14:19):
Kind of kinda sorta. Cause really every patient that comes into our office, they have their initial visit and then their second visit is an opportunity to slow down. All right. So, so life goes really fast. My facility, we have a 5,000 square foot facility, 10 to 15 different employees run around loud music and it’s an appealing environment. It’s not a closed room environment. So it can be really overwhelming for people’s, for people that people’s nervous systems you can, you can really get rattled. So we’ve, we’ve paid attention to that. So when someone comes in for their first visit, you will, you know, you show up the front desk, you actually have a patient advocate. So we have someone dedicated to explaining what the next couple minutes are going to be like. A brief explanation of insurance or financial responsibility, whichever works there. We do the initial examination.
Speaker: Dr. Brian Paris (15:08):
And depending on the situation, depending on the symptoms, you’re going to either the medical department, the chiropractic department, or the physical therapy department to start. Okay. And then once we, we, you know, our job is to, so that you have a phenomenal experience. We like to call it a wow experience. We want you to feel better that day. The next appointment you have is with what we’ve dictated as our case manager. That person goes over all the details. She’s a clinician and an administrator, so it’s a hybrid of a position where she’s able to, and it could be a he, but ours is a she, goes over your financial responsibility, your insurance benefits, your clinical care plan, what mean in the clinical care plan. And that’s really what our discussion is like. Okay. What elements are we going to suggest? What elements do you want and how do we come to a middle ground?
Speaker: Dr. Brian Paris (15:59):
Okay. Cause we also do a, we have a program called I hate knee pain. And I do too. Yes, we do. We all do. And the audience out there, I’m sure you do as well if you’re having it. So I hate knee pain, uses a Visco supplement. It’s a, it’s a viscous fluid that dissipates out of your knee once you get arthritic changes and damage and aging. This is covered by Medicare major medical insurance. So we can inject this fluid in the knee joint and we do physical therapy, chiropractic, acupuncture, all around that to help with symptoms and function beyond. So some person may need some of that. They may need chiropractic care or who knows? It’s just dependent on each, each patient.
Speaker: Chad Egresi (16:37):
Interesting. it’s, it’s important I think, you know, we, we understand here to take that kind of individual approach with people. So I’m sure your patients appreciate it like ours too. Yes. We’re going to jump into a subject here that’s pretty, I guess, I think it’s pretty big, but there are a few areas here that are kind of tied together in the question. So Dr. Paris, tell us how posture, sleep, nutrition, and exercise habits tie together in the overall wellness of the person.
Speaker: Dr. Brian Paris (17:03):
Yes.
Speaker: Chad Egresi (17:07):
So that’s correct. They all tie together. Yeah.
Speaker: Dr. Brian Paris (17:09):
Every single one of those elements. And again, it’s, it’s, it’s just as we’re talking about integrating health care that’s delivered to somebody, those are wellness and health habits that all of us need to integrate into our lives. Okay. If you’re not sleeping, you’re not healing psychologically, you’re not healing physically. If you have poor posture, it affects your, not only your musculoskeletal system and affects your immune system. All of that is proven. There are studies that come out all the time that focus on the effectiveness of posture, energy and overall systemic health. Nutrition. just, just, you know, this is, there’s always interesting things back and forth. I’m a big proponent of eating, eating clean, I, and that I use myself as an experiment. I tend to you know, I have some sensitivities and things like gluten and, and milk. So I just keep those out of my diet.
Speaker: Dr. Brian Paris (18:02):
That’s me personally and what I’ve taught my family and my, you know, in a lot of my patients if they want to. Really the key to nutrition is take inflammation down and put things in your body that are gonna help your brain survive and your body survive. So if you’re an athlete, you need to feel your body to replenish it and heal. And if you’re a human and you think, and you use your brand, you need to use food to help replenish. And, and, you know, an interesting story, my mom, mom, if you listen to this, hopefully you’re okay sharing that. But you know, she was big into the [inaudible] for a long time in the late seventies, eighties where there were no fat diets, right? Everything was fat-free and NutraSweet and fake sugars and all that kind of stuff. And my mom’s starting to complain again about certain things like joint pains and conditions or, you know, the loss of memory or fog and things. And I turned to, I said, ma, you haven’t had fat in like 30 years. Like start eating an avocado a day. Start eating almonds and cashews and almond butter and things like that to get it into your diet. So all of those elements, hydration and I think an often overlooked element is emotional health too, right? And that that becomes much more impactful in just your overall wellness taking care of your emotional health. Right. We can do a whole other podcast.
Speaker: Chad Egresi (19:19):
We could, you’re absolutely right. For sure. You touched on something there with nutrition in terms of what, what your mom had been taught and told, you know, for her lifetime that fat was wrong. That we were looking at low fat or no fat diets. And then we found out over the last few years, those things aren’t necessarily true. We need fat in our diet. So how do consumers determine what’s right and what’s wrong information when it comes to things like this. It’s the federal government telling you, here’s the food guide pyramid. Eat 11 servings of grains a day. Maybe that’s not the best thing to do.
Speaker: Dr. Brian Paris (19:54):
Yeah, and I, and I think you know, the, with the invention of the internet and the speed of information and how many people have become icons and champions of nutritional information, psychological information, movement information, that’s been a, an amazing thing with social media and what you can learn. It’s hard to trust data sometimes and research because you don’t know where it’s coming from. You know, a lot of, a lot of even index Medicus peer reviewed research. Yeah. Everybody wants to listen to that. But look, for me, and this is my perspective, listeners don’t have to agree, but like acupuncture itself has been around for thousands of years, way before chiropractic and traditional Western medicine. And I’m sure there’s tons of research, but you know, this stuff just works. Sure. So
Speaker: Chad Egresi (20:42):
I may not have mentioned and written down the same way that we’re used to. So it may not have been translated know the clinical research that was done in China 2000 years ago to determine whether this does work.
Speaker: Dr. Brian Paris (20:52):
Right. And what’s interesting is like the things that people are all coming up with, like, although there’s a lot of people doing breathwork now and cold therapy and you know, but those things have been being done for a long time. They’re just repackaged and now, you know, marketed differently. So I think the, if we can pinpoint that that question again as far as
Speaker: Chad Egresi (21:15):
How do they find the information, how do they determine what’s right and what’s wrong?
Speaker: Dr. Brian Paris (21:20):
I think if you follow dollars, I would tend to be like question, I would be skeptic about that information, right? If it’s like a pharmaceutical company putting information out, you have to, you have to be skeptical. I’m not saying don’t use those products or information, but I think it’s good to become a skeptic for yourself and yeah, and there’s enough out there where you can take a look and you have to see how things feel. Like certain people could do a paleo diet and they feel great. Certain people have reasons they want to be a vegan and they feel great that way because they’re not eating animal. But I think there’s, there’s biochemical individuality and all of us humans, you know, we all have different genetic makeups, so things are going to be D you know, our, our nutritional makeup or musculoskeletal makeup or you know, the way things happen or they’re going to be different from person to person. So you have to test, look for social proof if other people are doing these things and then back that up with some of the research and the data.
Speaker: Chad Egresi (22:15):
Maybe find a practitioner who takes the time to get to know you and your background even better from an integrated perspective. Wonderfulness. Awesome. So I think you talked a little bit about injection therapy. Part of your pain relief treatment protocol is including acupuncture injection therapy. Can you talk to us a little bit more about that or did you, did you explain the process and my well, no, talking about the same thing. Are they different?
Speaker: Dr. Brian Paris (22:40):
Well acupuncture injection therapy is a little different because you can, you can use things like vitamin B12 or you can call it bio puncture as well, where you’re actually using those fluids to inject into areas that would provide pain relief for areas that are in pain. There are you can use things like prolotherapy, which is like sugar water. You can use ozone, which is Oh three, it’s electrified oxygen which they’ve done a ton of research and usage in Europe, not as much here because you can’t pattern, it’s, it’s taking oxygen and electrifying it so you’re just taking air and turning it into a usable medicine. So ozone is typically used for cleaning with like, you know, you’ve seen it used in like cleaning hockey equipment and things like that. Same as the, you know, the ozone layer here. But it can actually be used from an acupuncture injection therapy to help clean out a joint or, or use for trigger point therapy and things. Interesting,
Speaker: Chad Egresi (23:44):
Interesting.
Speaker: Dr. Brian Paris (23:45):
So as an athlete or a former athlete at this point in my life, I guess I’ve always heard about cortisone treatment and cortisone injections to try and treat pain and issues. Right? Is it the same or is it different? Very different. It’s B. So cortisone is, you know, it’s a, it’s a very strong anti-inflammatory agent and it can, you know, take inflammation down and there are uses for it. The problem is once you use it over a period of time, it starts to have the opposite or deleterious effects where it’s gonna break a joint down to the tissues within the joint. You have to be careful too because if you’re diabetic, there are reactions with it. The issue is that it’s become a gold standard of care, especially in the knee pain world. And a lot of just, this is more experience where I’ve seen people get a cortisone injection, they gave one, it doesn’t work. You’re going to get, you’re going to get two more within the year. And then they keep doing that and there’s no, there’s no results. Whereas we’ve taken a look at knee pain and said, okay, you’ve got an arthritic joint, let’s expand the size of the joint, give it some cushioning with Visco supplement and then help the joints above, below. So with our knee pain program, we’re not just looking at the knees, we’re looking at the hips, back, mid back, neck, ankles, feet, everything else that, that the knee moves because of or vice versa. So
Speaker: Chad Egresi (25:02):
What kind of feedback are you getting from patients with this kind of treatment?
Speaker: Dr. Brian Paris (25:05):
Just check us out on Google. The Google reviews. Yes. Yeah. Five, seven, five stores. Lots of reviews. Yeah. So people are feeling good. Yeah. And that’s, and I want people to have a great experience and, and even if they don’t get the results that they get our patients and clients, like I want them to have a phenomenal experience. Like if we can’t help them, we’re going to be honest and communicate and the relationship is the most important piece.
Speaker: Chad Egresi (25:28):
Yeah, definitely. We agree. So tell us a little bit about what you, what got you interested in Eastern medicine and specifically acupuncture.
Speaker: Dr. Brian Paris (25:40):
That’s a great question. I think I’m just a more open minded clinician because I had some experiences when I was younger where this could be a long story, but I’ll, I’ll try and make it quick. I was, when I, I probably like 10, 11, 12 years old, somewhere in that range. I was getting bronchitis like four or five, six times a year and I could spell Arithromycin backwards and forwards cause that was like my common pill that I would pop because it was constantly getting sick. And somehow I ended up in an allergist’s office and found that I was allergic to milk and I was like a, you know, hyperactive cereal, addicted to sugar addicted kid. And so like cereal and milk was my staple. And I found out I was allergic to milk. I stopped drinking milk and I stopped getting bronchitis almost immediately.
Speaker: Dr. Brian Paris (26:34):
And it showed me very early on that, you know, thinking traditionally is not always effective. And then I had another trauma. When I was 19, I dislocated my hip and ended up in physical therapy and it was just such a in the box cookie cutter approach to healing. And I was still, you know, I’m still athletic, but I was just like, I don’t want to lose my ability to move. So it, it created a fire inside of me to find out better ways to move from my body to heal. Okay, wonderful.
Speaker: Chad Egresi (27:12):
I think, you know, when we talk about traditional medicine, we hear all the time and we think traditional is our current Western medical system and we look back and there’s traditional medicine that’s even older, you know, thousands of years in Eastern medicine specifically as something that, you know, we know from historical tax has been around for a long time. So from a business perspective, you know, kind of going back into the original, do you feel that from a business perspective, adding that kind of a per theoretical underpinning and Eastern medicine is something that helps your business or does it, does it have an impact on your business?
Speaker: Dr. Brian Paris (27:48):
I think it definitely has an impact on my business. It helps my business. And it also is really what we are. You know, it’s, it’s a, it’s a, we are, I, I don’t necessarily like the term alternative, but because they’re the most commonly used medicine is Western type medicine pills and surgery. But things are changing. Do they, I’ve seen a major shift in the last 18 years. Being in this field it’s definitely helped the business cause it sets a support. You know, we are the option when people can’t have surgery, don’t want to have surgery. I deal with a lot of young athletes now too. Cause I have a son who plays lacrosse and a daughter who’s in, in palms. So I deal with a lot of their friends who have these chronic repetitive injuries. So and the like, drugs don’t help with them because they’re, you know, they’re, they can hurt them otherwise.
Speaker: Dr. Brian Paris (28:42):
A lot of other symptoms, they’re not surgical candidates. Right. They didn’t tear an ACL or something like that. If you tear your ACL, you’ve got to get it repaired. Right. But these are more chronic, repetitive, not just like posture type stuff, but things like, I’ve seen it in lacrosse, I’ve seen it in football, I’ve seen it in dance, I’ve seen a lot of these more common now these chronic repetitive injuries. So I think acupuncture, chiropractic, physical therapy, all these things are such, we’re, we’re in the right place to treat these, to treat these types of injuries in a chronic pain.
Speaker: Chad Egresi (29:14):
And repetitive injury example would be something like a baseball pitcher who throws the ball hundreds, thousands of time in their high school career and has this rotator issue. And
Speaker: Dr. Brian Paris (29:23):
There’s, and there’s an interesting caveat off that like if you like multi, that’s why I’m a big fan of multi-sport athletes, not just one sport because you’re doing that same movement over and over and over and over. It’s going to wear the body down. So, and, and it’s, it’s a challenge cause you’re seeing, you know where my son’s lacrosse team, they play from September to July, so it’s full year. But he gets his other sports in otherwise helps bring in some new motions. Yeah. Repetition or, or new injuries.
Speaker: Chad Egresi (29:55):
Let’s see, what do you think the most common misconception is about integrative medicine and wellness that you’re looking to change?
Speaker: Dr. Brian Paris (30:05):
That it’s only covered by cash right there. It’s only self-pay. So physical therapy is covered by insurance. Chiropractic is covered by insurance. Medicine obviously is covered by insurance. Did I say acupuncture? Okay. Acupuncture is covered by insurance. So all of those things like if you have health insurance, you might as well use it. And you know, there’s different benefits for different practices. And it’s, it’s, it’s smart to have someone who can help you with that cause it gets really confusing to navigate it. Let’s see. What’s another myth? Another myth might be like if you go to someone like a chiropractor, you have to go forever and, and, and, and it’s, you know, for us, we have defined treatment plans and we have people who do maintenance care, so they use chiropractic care and physical therapy has some more restrictions on the insurance side with that.
Speaker: Dr. Brian Paris (31:00):
But in chiropractic care, we do a lot of maintenance type care. Take care of your body over time. If you’re using it, especially in athletics, but you know, everybody nowadays is beating their bodies up just from having poor posture at work. Right? So getting, getting consistent care as let’s see, what other myths are there? There’s no research that’s false. There’s tons of research out there that I’ve heard. It’s, it’s dangerous. You know, and if you look at the amount of people that are dying each year from heart disease and, and medicine itself the numbers are staggering. So those are false. I don’t know, you may be able to think of some more myths
Speaker: Chad Egresi (31:42):
Mean I think when it comes to the, there, there are common, there are lots of common myths, right? And you’ve touched upon the majority of them already, but you know, determining whether or not this is an efficacious medicine, I think is one of the biggest ones that we face from acupuncture or chiropractic or, or any of the Eastern modalities to be honest with you, herbal medicine, so on and so forth. So helping people understand that, that there is a lot of history behind this medicine and a lot of experience. And a lot of of research behind outcomes is, is I think really
Speaker: Dr. Brian Paris (32:16):
One is I think people out there they just need to ask more questions and be curious. Cause it’s like you look at the whole cannabis industry, right? So for, for decades it’s been illegal and now it’s legal, right? So does legality really determine the effectiveness of that medicine? Well, if for me it affects the use, right? You’re going to use it or not. But I’ve seen benefits from, from cannabis and the endocannabinoid system and in pain, right? So, but you have to be concerned or be aware of the governing bodies. I question that.
Speaker: Chad Egresi (32:50):
Absolutely. It goes back to the fat conversation, right? Yes. 30 40 years ago. It’s the same idea. Somebody tells us who we believe in trust. This is right. Yes. This is what you’re supposed to do. Some very smart marketers. Very smart.
Speaker: Dr. Brian Paris (33:02):
Yeah. Using intelligence psychology to have us think certain ways. So being confident that you can find the right research, find the right practitioner that you feel comfortable with and safe with so that you can ask questions. I think that’s the most important piece.
Speaker: Chad Egresi (33:17):
Couldn’t agree more what you’re doing dr Paris is you’re adopting a different level or a different type of treatment protocol within your union, your environment. Do you feel like other chiropractors and other physical therapists and other, even Western medical doctors are open to the same thing?
Speaker: Dr. Brian Paris (33:35):
I, you know, I think because you have to tie in this question from a business perspective and it’s not, it’s, it’s been, you know, it’s part of the challenge of running an integrated business cause they can get very complicated. So you have to just be very organized and efficient with your systems on the inside that patients really don’t get to experience. So hopefully they just experienced the results of that. Some practitioners, and it’s different for everybody, right? You know, I have a lot of colleagues who have integrated practices. I saw it as a need because everything’s under one roof and you get the best of all worlds together to be able to not have to drive. And now like in this town, man, driving anywhere is, is like, it’s a bit challenging, you know, from, from everybody’s busy, nobody has time anymore. Right.
Speaker: Dr. Brian Paris (34:24):
And, and it seems like, you know, it just, it’s just that, that perception like people and to make it ease of use or you come in, it’s like you’re able to get everything under one roof. We’re always working on our internal systems so that we can feel like a well oiled machine. So someone gets a very good experience. That may be a barrier for some people in the field because they, that’s, it’s a big challenge. It’s not, it wasn’t an easy hurdle to get through some of that. Also some people just want to stay focused on what they do. Right. You know, some people are very traditional in that world. I have some mentors who were chiropractors only. They don’t put any other modalities in and that’s the way they want to practice. And you know, we’ve worked on not only integrated but integrating with the best of the practitioners too.
Speaker: Dr. Brian Paris (35:12):
Right. So you have to either train them, find them well-trained or, you know, and we’re a combination of both. You know, the social media aspect has escalated sped up, evolved, you know, just the things that our children, I don’t know think you guys have kids, but the things that my children know now at 15 and 13 of what I knew at 15 and 13, like it’s worlds beyond the how technology’s on it. So it’s really a, it’s been awesome to be able to expose the public to these things. Things like acupuncture, acupuncture, injection therapy, chiropractic, physical therapy, all mixed together in one. So you really get a much better knowledge base consumerism out there. So if that was the word consumerism, yes. So they’re able to really get some exposure to things that they otherwise only would have heard of downtown. Right.
Speaker: Dr. Brian Paris (36:08):
But I, I, or like from a, from a friend or something like that, whereas you could go on YouTube and type in chiropractic and get eight kajillion videos or acupuncture and you get all these, you know, there’s so much information out there. So I think people are gay are only going to know even more, but that’s important to do your research prior and also make sure that, you know, I like referrals, you know, and, and, and people that come in that have been referred by other people, it’s just, it makes the transition a little bit more informed. Yeah. Yeah. And that’s what, you know, our target and in our marketing and our communication with our patients, if they’re brand new to the practice, we want to make sure that they feel comfortable, have a really good understanding of what they’re, what they’re going to experience before they experience it.
Speaker: Dr. Brian Paris (36:52):
Honestly, I think it’s funny, someone asked me the other day, I started public speaking in student government in like sixth grade and it’s just something that fits my personality. I like it. I’ve trained in it and I want to use that as a, gee, I want to use that gift as a way to help society improve. And I felt that I could have a much larger reach, especially now with digital media. Not necessarily from an experiential perspective, but more from hopefully someone can get sparked and, and inspired. That’s really what my, my life’s mission is. Like someone listens to this, those of you out there, hopefully it can inspire you to you know, see the things that I put out there in the digital world. See the things that we do in the practice and inspire you to take better care of yourself.
Speaker: Dr. Brian Paris (37:41):
So yeah, I like to call it sales 2.0 right. Cause when you think of sales, you think of a used car salesman, right? The movie, if you guys haven’t seen it, Glengarry Glen Ross, coffee’s for closers. Right? And that’s it. So you’re going to brow beat someone into making their decision and, and crush them until they’re basically crying with their signature. Right? And that’s, you know, and then there’s always buyers are more in there. Now I’m not speaking anecdotally about this, I’m speaking experientially because I have, I have strong armed or persuaded people into chiropractic care. And the way that I used to approach it was, you know, what’s in it for me? How can I, what I know is better than what you know about yourself and I’m going to tell you what you need and not listen to what you want. Right.
Speaker: Dr. Brian Paris (38:30):
And there’s, there’s a balance and really there’s, there’s, we can dive very, very far into this. And one of the, one of the presentations I’d give is called five lanes of communication and the L stands for listening and being in a space where you can actually listen to somebody without coming up with your response in your head behind it now. And that’s, you know, that’s what I’ve been working on in this podcast. It’s really actually just listening to chats questions versus coming up with a canned response and thinking in my brain before he actually finishes the sentence. So I like the term enrollment and sharing versus teaching. Right? And it’s funny cause I’ve watched myself on videotape and when I’m teaching and lecturing my forehead, wrinkles like this, if I’m on camera and if I’m just sharing and communicating, my face is relaxed. So it’s really interesting to look at the neurobiology of sales and communication as well.
Speaker: Dr. Brian Paris (39:20):
So I can test myself when I go back and watch the video if I’m, you know, and I love teaching. I love turning lights on for people. And this whole enrollment aspect is really about listening and listening from your heart and being hyper present. Super focused on what that person is saying so that you can pick out those little tidbits that are more important than something like knee pain, right? Because what’s more important than knee pain is what I can do when I don’t have any pain, right? The grandchildren, I can pick up the church that I can go to the, the, the, I’m walking to the, from the bathroom to the refrigerator, those types of things. So I think that’s really, really, really important for practitioners to especially practitioners coming out of this institution. Cause I think they have a beautiful art and philosophy and practice and, and, and healing elements to offer the public.
Speaker: Dr. Brian Paris (40:11):
And the public needs more of this and we need more good acupunctures. But if acupuncture is, can’t get their word out, it’s useless. A really good acupuncture who can’t market it, run a business, no offense guys, it’s useless guys and gals because you can sit in a room and do nothing. But if you, if you can’t get out into the room and get humans into your office, you’re not serving the community. So understanding yourself, understanding where your limitations are I find that enrollment and training in that is, is imperative for all practitioners. And I was so glad to speak to all of you and your administration and that it’s part of it and you want it to be more part of it. What the problem is, is the public has been so overexposed from marketing and just destroyed, right? Our brains can’t handle it anymore.
Speaker: Dr. Brian Paris (41:00):
Like I look at a pair of boots online and then they start texting me these boots on my phone. I’m like, my goodness. So it’s, it’s, you know, and as someone who is in marketing, I understand how that works. You do too. It’s, you know, w so regardless though I, those are elements like if that’s, if you’re not good at that, you have to be good enough to develop systems around you and potentially hire the right people. I learned another thing if a fractional marketer, right? A fractal fractal, fractional fractional, not fractal, sorry. So, you know, being able to outsource those types of things in today’s world is so doable. All right. It’s tough when you’re starting out as an early practitioner. But again, like, you know, the, I’m so glad to hear that these programs integrate sales and sales 2.0 or enrollment techniques, communication techniques, understanding yourself, your own emotion so that you can be present for somebody else. I met some practitioners, they’re so anxious and there’s no way you could handle him helping someone heal if you yourself are not healed. And it’s a, it’s a constant process. But those are really important for sales in itself to be able to recognize your own emotions so that you can connect and help other people with their emotions and healing.
Speaker: Chad Egresi (42:10):
Dr Paris, he talked to about, you know, sales Salesforce 2.0 from your perspective in the work that you’re doing and your clinic. You know, I want to make sure that the audience understands from IMS perspective that we take the same approach when it comes to enrolling students who are enrolling patients. You know, our, our goal is to make sure that people have an opportunity to be educated to, to enroll here, to get to our clinic, not to sell them on the idea that we’re going to fix everything because everybody’s into individual. Right. And so like you do with your first session with your patients, you bring them in, you talk to them and get to know what it is. You try to address that initial symptom and then see how you can help them in whole. We do the exact same thing. We initially answered their question.
Speaker: Chad Egresi (42:51):
You’re interested in this. That’s, that’s wonderful. We’d like to talk to you about the program. We’d like to talk to you about becoming a patient here. But the next step for us is to really get to know them, to build the relationship, to determine whether or not it’s, it’s something that they would really be successful at, they really want to be a part of. And so to kind of lead into the end of our conversation here, one of the things that, that we like to do on this podcast is that we want to, we want to know what does integrative mean to you? So our final question is, what does integrative mean to you?
Speaker: Dr. Brian Paris (43:23):
It’s a balance, harmony, oneness, unity, wonderful. So putting all the pieces together, filling all the buckets and making sure one is not overflowed and, and that, that harmonious existence, the calmness with power underneath
Speaker: Chad Egresi (43:45):
It sounds like the [inaudible].
Speaker: Dr. Brian Paris (43:46):
Yes, sir. Thank you very much. This has been a really cool experience to meet everybody here and, and be, be introduced through this podcast and I only wish it to be successful and helping, you know, acupuncture be spread throughout our community and look forward to working with you guys again in the future.
Speaker: Chad Egresi (44:05):
We couldn’t appreciate it more. We, we really thank you for your time and for being here. And so you beat me to the punch in terms of thanking you. But, but the fact that we’re able to connect with people like you who are out in the field and doing this work and want to be an integrative setting is, is hugely beneficial to us and to the students who are graduating. More importantly, just thank you. Thank you. Thanks for listening to all things
Speaker 1 (44:32):
Integrated. Be sure to tune into our next episode where we’ll share more information on how integrative medicine can help you lead a happier, healthier life.